The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1887-05-05
DonaId's Wife.

When DOnalQ MCh0On married MS
ward, Jessie Summer. many of his
friends said he had made mistake.
She was merry, laughing girl Of
eighteen, fresh from school, and he.
her fathers old friend, quiet. self
contained man of thirty-five. and it can
scarcely be wondered at that many
wise heads were shaken over the ILL.,
sorted match.
Jessie had always stood a little in
ave of the quiet, stern man who had
been frequent visitor at her fathers
house during his life time.
But she was quite unprovided for.
and Donald McKeon was wealthy; and
when he asked her to be his wife in a
matter. of-fact way. very much as he
might have asked her to be his house.
keeper, it seemed the easiest way to
solve the troublesome problem of her
life; and, besides this, she knew her
father to have been under obligations
to him, and more than suspected that
the three years she had spent at a
fashionable school since her fathers
death had been at his expense.
And so they were married. and he
took her to his old home, that his
family had owned and occupied for
generations.
1t never occurred to him that it was
q dreary sort of life for q girl like
Jessie, alone in that gloomy old house
all day, with only the servants and the
ghosts of by-g gone generations for COM
pany.
And when she grew pale and listless,
and lost her old elasticity of spirits, a
fear that had haunted him since his
wedding day took possession of him
and poisoned his life-a fear that she
had married him for home and posi-
ton, and already regretted her choice:
Gladly would he have given her back
her liberty had that been possible. But
being a sensitive, undemonstrative
man, he let her see nothing of this, but
rather shrank from her because of the
wrong he had done her, and came and
went and made no sign.
And then people began to discover
that Mrs. McKeon was very charm
ing woman, and her husband a wealthy
aud influential man, and invitations
began to pour in upon her.
And Jessie plunged into this new life
of fashionable dissipation with a zeal
that was the natural reaction from the
gloom and the loneliness of the past
year.
At first her husband accompanied her
wherever she went, for he had some
what old fashioned notions as to what
was right and fitting for women to do.
But it was life he utterly detested.
1t interfered with his business, and he
looked below the surface and saw the
hollow falshood it was, after all, and it
grated on his fine ideas of truth and
sincerity.
Perhaps he was somewhat dictatorial
In his manner of telling her this; per-
haps she imagined SO. But when he
urged the point, she rebelled against
his assumption of authority.
It was their first quarrel and their
last, but 1t was very bitter one.
She spoke cruel singing words, that
ranked and stung him the more that
he had learned to love her SO dearly,
as only reserved, self-constrained men
such as he can love, and then only
when they hoard all the treasures OF
their nature to lavish it in middle life
on the woman who is their fate.
After that he opposed her in nothing,
bnt it was as though great wall of ice
had risen between them.
He devoted himself to business and
she became the acknowledged leader of
the most exclusive circle of the city.
She was madly extravagant. She
made the old house marvel of aesthetic
beauty. and entertained like princess.
Mrs. McKeon's toilets. jewels and
dinners became the models of her set
Men worshipped her beauty; but for
all their batteries she had the same
smile of cold contempt, and no man
was bold enough to venture beyond
the most commonplace.
And so the years passed, and each
one drifted them further apart, until
they seldom met, except at their own
grand entertainments. Each year she
became more the slave of fashion, and
he of his Office. But through it all he
loved her with an undying love, and
his one thought was to crafty her
every whim.
And when the dark days came
when ships that were sent out freighted
with costly wares went down, and
were heard of no more-when
houses that seemed stable as granite
failed, and his wealth seemed melting
away like a snowy wreath, his only
thought was for her, and though each
day his hair grew whittier and his form
grew more stopped with bending over
the long columns of figures in which
the balance was always on the wrong
side, he whispered, ''For her sake. y
and struggled on and denied her moth
ing.
And even on the day when he
came home, knowing that all his ef-
forts had availed him nothing, and that
he was a poor man. his only thought
was for her, that he would never more
be able to give her the things she had
bartered so much for.
He went in the grand old library,
that was almost the only room in the
house which remained unchanged, and
tried to collect his thoughts. How
could he tell her, was the question that
reiterated itself through his brain, and
for the first time in his life Donald
McKeon was coward.
F.. The thought came to him of how she
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